Unity ditching Flash support

Unity has stopped selling Flash deployment licenses as it ditches support for the platform.

In a statement, Unity CEO David Helgason said despite originally having high hopes for Flash with promising early builds, the engine firm felt Adobe was no longer committed to the future of the platform.

He cited that the cancellation of Flash Player Next and the instability of recent Flash player versions as signs that Adobe was moving on to other projects.

Helgason also said the Adobe had eroded developer trust in Flash as a dependable platform after introducing and then abandoning a revenue sharing model.

Despite moving away from Flash, he stated Unity would continue to support its existing Flash customers through the Unity 4 cycle, although it would not be making any further significant investments in it.

“We know that some of you have, like us, invested heavily in targeting Flash,” he said.

“We will do all we can to support you. We will keep the current Flash deployment feature set functioning throughout the Unity 4.x cycle, and will include bug fixes made in upcoming Unity 4.x iterations. We do not plan, however, to make further significant investments in deployment to the platform.”

As for the future of web support, Helgason said it would continue to push use of the Unity Web Player after “unprecedented growth” in recent months, noting it had seen increased popularity among Facebook users.

He added that work was also currently underway on a new Unity web publishing initiative, which Unity would provide more details on soon.